The Altruists
by Princess-Of-Callow
Summary: In the silence of their thoughts and in the rumble of thunder, a man and woman discover that when divested of their brave fronts, they are still the same people whose hearts are bound together.


**I wanted to go for something that most could actually see happening. Went for some realism here! **

**Final Fantasy VII does not belong to me and I find that I'm trying to convince myself of this more than anyone else.**

**I recommend listening to the song 'Asleep' by Emily Browning. I'd heard it several days ago and thought it might set a perfect mood! **

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Thinking was one of many pernicious eventualities that impeded rest when it came time to have it. Leave it to this nightly misfortune to stymie sleep by every means possible for one particular young, frustrated woman. Trust that sleep never made itself a problem for the people she shared her home and life with.

Not cherubic and thoughtful Marlene who rested in her quiet room with her loud dreams. An uninvolving day and an uneventful night had taken its toll on her, sending her to sleep hours before appointed curfew.

Not considerate and inquisitive Denzel. He slept a bed away from the peaceful Marlene. However, he is one to get rather restless when he sleeps. Shifting from this position to the next and stirring whenever his dreams grew exciting.

So susceptible were the children to slumber that soon as their optimistic heads hit their pillows they'd be long gone.

No, the children would never suffer from lack of sleep. Heavens, no.

But it was no question that sleep deprivation would sooner become a problem for the two kids before it would for Cloud Strife.

The man whose dreams once surmounted the heights of mountains. He was once the boy whose shy smile never waned. The boy who once idolized a former hero turned silver haired nightmare. The boy who'd made the supposed contemplative decision to join SOLDIER in the adolescent hopes to surpass him.

And that he did.

But only for the dream that had become the reality he pined for, to disperse into the atmosphere in an opalescent kaleidoscope of dashed hopes and spurious memories. Memories that never associated with his life at any moment. He was sent careening rearward into despond and into an incognizant state of self-destruction. And for what?

What foolish incentive provided the motivation to be racked with all this suffering? The desire to be acknowledged? By who? By everyone? By her? Of course, of course it was her.

He'd chased a fleeting dream to hell and back, that boy.

That boy was gone.

He had indeed returned from the remote blackness of hell, clawed his way back somehow. But that unnamed place of darkness had left its mark. It lacerated the scars deep into him pitilessly in the guise of angry red memories. Scars left by the scalpel of a devil and scars left by the sword of an abomination of a science project.

Scars left by the loss of the only friend who shepherded him through that hell.

And from the ashes of that boy, a man isolated in his own detrimental mind limped up and out, he never let the pain of what he'd seen evince itself on him in any intelligible way. Not in his anesthetized countenance and not in the silence that hovers over him everywhere he decides to set foot. The scars of his past were still open and irremediable. He'd changed, in every aspect of being, but for one. One godforsaken thing remained constant in the forever changing image of him. And with every nerve ending in her body, she wished they'd chosen to go through with the redundancy of altering that damned face of his.

It was unequivocally true, she couldn't deny, that aside from the glow his eyes produced, a trait provided by Mako, Cloud hadn't aged a day. Not since he left Nibelheim, that face still conveyed heavy semblance to that loose lipped and doe eyed child whose hair reminded her of the sun and chocobos. It never failed to awaken memories of times when Tifa had first seen him display that reticence, only back then it was greatly moderated. She remembered the silent admiration he was forced to keep under wraps because of the distance he'd established between them. And the making of this distance wasn't without the assistance of Tifa's friends. They made certain the quiet freak was no less than a meter away.

Were it not for the immaturity of her classmates and her feckless proclivity to stay within her wonted circle of friends, she would have approached him.

But with the death of her mother, she fell into a deeper silence than he. The illness that took her mother away from her reinstituted a young Tifa with a more enlightened idea of what life really was. A perennial cycle of inveterate loss. She no longer understood what it meant to be happy, so she sought out her mother's evanescent spirit. It meant little to her that she'd have to conquer an entire mountain to reach her mother's fading phantom.

But it seemed to mean plenty more to him.

He had the courage to pursue her. Perhaps to accompany her in her search, perhaps to pull her out of her foolish reverie. She didn't know. She didn't care. She focused only on avoiding loss of footing as she ascended the mountain.

Her own father could have sent an entire fleet climbing after her and she wouldn't bat an eye. All she'd coveted was the reunion of she and her mother. But the rocks were probably slippery, an inauspicious product of morning dew and condensation. And as a result, the bridge she'd been crossing had given out. So, before she could watch her doting mother be restored to her after her trek, the bridge collapsed. She descended back to the soil in a violent plummet, colliding with the callous and jagged surface of the mountain face in jarring tumbles and collisions.

And instead of waking up in the comfort of her bed to realize that it all had been a nightmare, Tifa awoke in a rigid white-sheeted bed with one foot in her grave.

And all she cared to remember was the blue, the impossibly blue eyes that had greeted her seconds after she finally opens her eyes. He had landed just as roughly as she did and did not walk away unscathed. But he was in far better condition than she was, seeing as he could stand without the aid of another's arm.

He never allowed her any privacy, the way he was almost always by her side. But she preferred it this way. Cloud's presence meant the absence of boredom and silence.

She found that however painful the process of convalesce was, he mitigated her agony with his company. But soon her father got word that Cloud was to blame for Tifa's plunge, a load of fallacious tidings the townsfolk had calculated on speculation. And he sent Cloud away, stealing Tifa's only means of conciliation in one misguided fell swoop.

But even after he'd made himself scarce, Tifa continued to mull over what his presence had meant to her. If one as young and puerile as Cloud, a child with no more knowledge of life than herself, possessed the lucidity to see that what was gone was irredeemable, what was hindering her?

And so, a few years passed, Tifa invested this time in revivifying and toppling over milestones of recuperation. Only for Cloud to up and leave when the exigency of accomplishing his dream became ineluctable. But not before she'd ask him to give her his word that he'd come running whenever she was in a bind. And with his consent to undertake this oath and swear by his heart that he'd never let her fall, Tifa wished him nothing but luck. She watched him walk out of her life. Only this time, it was by his own conation.

Damn Shinra.

Shinra hadn't the blasted courtesy to simply bring Cloud's extensive modification to its completion. They certainly overextended themselves making such impactful alterations to his body, it shouldn't take much effort to be thorough in their execution of his transformation. Others would never have to suffer every time their eyes fell on that damned face, had Shinra been a bit less careless.

They wouldn't recall any damned memory of a boy so buoyant and sanguine. They would have spared her the damned pangs of loss when those damned eyes sent her back to that damned water tower under a damned starry sky where a blissfully hopeful boy stole her damned heart.

Damn Shinra to hell.

Tifa gripped her sheets tightly and ground her teeth in the darkness of her room. She shut her eyes, hugging her quivering form with her shapely arms.

"I'll never fall asleep like this..."

Tifa shoved her bed sheets aside and schlepped to her window in pitifully haggard movements. There, she let her ears modulate the pitter-patter of murmuring rain on granite to the background noise that would augment the production of her pensive thoughts.

She sighed, shaking her head as she looked on at the current saturnine climate that reflected her mood.

Should Tifa someday take everything into account, she would have to thank time for making the ordeal even slightly easier on her.

Yes, time did a well enough job providing slight changes here and there throughout the years. Tifa had seen it herself, the almost imperceptible refinements to Cloud's overall appearance, evolve into notable and conspicuous improvements. Time did a laudable job sculpting his chiseled and arresting features. Tifa had long since become aware of the female patrons that frequented the bar who'd also taken to studying the unsurpassed masculine beauty.

Time had honed Cloud into the gorgeous object of every woman's darkest fantasy. Including herself.

But this did nothing to change how Tifa felt. She couldn't tune out the recurrent bite of indignation towards that horrible company every time she saw how little in fact had changed in him. She blamed them. She held them culpable for every deterrent she'd encountered after joining AVALANCHE. And she doggedly attributes the difficulty of her victories to their treachery.

And though she loathed shirking responsibility of her losses, she felt less inferior when tossing the blame on something else. Anything else.

But Shinra was to blame, without a shred of doubt, for fooling her and taunting her with the evocative image of a boy she'd never see again. An entire dream she'd let drip through her fingers. A whole world she'd left behind.

All of it reflected at her, flaunted at her, In Cloud's eyes. A time of simplicity and clarity.

A time where she could sleep.

Tifa didn't flick the wayward tear that skids down her cheek. She didn't attempt to inhibit any of her body's involuntary responses to the grief that seized her like the claw of death. She didn't try standing up after shrinking to the floor after her knees buckled and submitted to the tonnage of her guilt. She didn't even think to regulate her shallow and convulsive breaths.

Tifa leaned against her bed, tucked her legs into her body and ducked her head into her palms.

More than anything she just wanted to be strong. Strong today, as a new challenge is served to her each passing day. And strong when the safety of everyone she loved was brought to serious question. The first time, when Sephiroth reduced her hometown to a patch of ash and cinders. And the second, when the threat of the world's end twinkled on the sharp edge of his blade.

Tifa understood that she alone could never provide a sound defense for the planet. She'd heard of a group of alleged eco-terrorists out to thwart Shinra's schemes. She thought that maybe with her addition, the group would become a stronger force. She thought she was finally doing something productive instead of being a liability. And then Cloud showed up, and everything became that much brighter in Tifa's life. But everything also took a dark turn, the planet was in a greater danger than she'd once believed. But instead of retreating to fear upon this realization, Tifa rose to the challenge. She'd braved this terror so that others might live to see a safer day.

And then, by some work of divine intervention, Tifa was given the blessing of the extended life she was ready to give up. She'd survived, but by the skin of her teeth. She was grateful that she had chance to glimpse as Cloud ended Sephiroth's life with a final thrust of his sword. She was happy it was over.

But too soon, two years later to be accurate, it proved to be just the beginning of Sephiroth's rampant rage. She almost wished she hadn't lived to see the day when Denzel had fallen ill to Geostigma. She didn't want to see a disease steal another loved one away.

Then she finds out Cloud had contacted the sickness too.

And before the man she loved, she showed weakness.

She'd always displayed some form of weakness, and he always saw it. And it was because she showed weakness that Cloud felt he could not show weakness. She was the reason he'd elected to leave. She was the reason he grew distant and secretive. Because god forbid someone is weaker than Cloud.

It was almost as if Cloud cannot stand being in the presence of someone who showed greater need for others than he did. Almost as if Cloud Strife, the planet's savior, victor of evil, Tifa's pride and joy, could not believe someone could be weaker than him. He will never understand how strong he truly is, as if his list of accomplishments didn't spell enough things out.

But even so, no one in her home slept more soundly than Cloud Strife.

Tifa's tears slid down her face in inexorable streams. Not wanting to wake the children, she tried choking back her weeping, but her sobs wouldn't let up. By gods! She hated thinking! Hated remembering! Hated how the two insidiously harmless nightly activities made her lie to herself! For this was another cruel contingency of thinking; lying to oneself.

Of course, she'd lied. It was better to have lied than to believe for one second the likeliest of events had taken place. She only hoped Cloud slept the deepest sleep out of all of them. She'd rather have him sleeping, drowning in vivid nightmares than have him leave again. Months after Sephiroth's second defeat, Cloud seemed to be conducive to the mending of the bond he'd tried to break off, but Tifa could never be too certain.

The last time she was totally and indubitably faithful in the hope that everything would turn out fine, the man she fell madly in love with up and vanished. And with him, went the spring in her step, the smile on her face, and the joy in her heart. He took it all with him and it wasn't until he came back that she felt they were all somewhat restored to her.

She hoped to the gods he hadn't left, because he was so tactful and stealthy about these things. Cloud usually operated in the darkness, he could move in it like a shadow in fog. He could have left hours ago and she'd be none the wiser. She didn't want to dash for his room and see that he isn't there, but contrarily she didn't want to come barreling through his door to find him sound asleep, only to wake him. She just didn't want to burden him any longer, didn't want to smother him. Didn't want to provide any reason for him to so much as consider stepping outside. So, all she could do was hope.

"Please," Tifa smeared her tears away with the heel of her palm, "Be here in the morning." Tifa beseeches pathetically to whatever force had acted on that day. It was all she had left. In her stillness, Tifa found it in her power to bring her breathing back to normal, attenuate her heart's rapid beating and finally stand. It was clear that tonight she would not get much sleep, if any. So, she sat, sat and shivered under the chill of the air vent. If she was to state any preferences, she would much rather be cold than sleeping. Slumber compromises awareness, and she wanted to hear everything.

And that she did.

Even the knock on her door just shy of sounding like a feather sliding against the wood.

"I thought I heard something." Cloud said cracking the door open and inching his golden-haired head inside.

His voice reverberated through her body in a husky shudder. And she wasn't cold anymore. But overwhelmed with heat, such blinding heat. He was still there. There, which meant he wasn't anywhere else, meant that he hadn't decided to leave. He didn't go. He was still home.

With her.

Tifa didn't have time to look sad in front of him, best not to ward him off now that she sees that he'd stayed. She had to shape up, she wiped the salty residue of her tears behind the veil of her dark hair. She then smiles, brushing her hair aside to add authenticity. "...Oh, hi."

He allowed himself to depart from the security of Tifa's door and enter her room. His eyes strayed to her and requested her permission to sit next to her. Tifa nodded fervently and she noticed that he didn't fail to catch the glossiness in her eyes, a telltale product of tear shedding. Cursing her carelessness, Tifa tired even harder to deviate his attention away from the signs of sadness.

"What's got you up?" Tifa tested, blinking rapidly to shoo away the haziness in her eyes.

She was so shocked by Cloud's entrance, that in her daze, she forgets that it'd be in her best interest not to gawk for more than the measured seconds she could afford. She would always catch herself sneaking furtive glances no matter what either them were doing. Whether she be mingling drinks and he be walking in from a delivery, or when she's doing laundry and he happens upon her, brushing her side on accident. She'd catch herself and proceed to stop herself when the seconds prolonged.

But the moonlight spilling from her window flattered angles and planes on his face that she'd yet to notice until now, making him all the more beautiful. He mesmerized her, and she couldn't quite stop herself this time.

"Well, I thought I heard you..." Cloud was certain what he heard were not sounds made by someone who was sleeping. But how to approach her when inquiring about her sorrowful noises? This was not an emotion he identified Tifa with.

But he was aware of Tifa's acquired mastery of his less than wordy speech patterns. With her, he need not worry of accommodating with more voluble tongue.

Aware that her cover was blown, Tifa inwardly sighs and attempts to derail the subject again in hopes of veering the conversation off course. "Oh, sorry to wake you."

Cloud stops looking at his toes and faces her. "Wake me?"

Knowing that Tifa couldn't truly think that little of him, suggesting that he value something like sleep over her wellbeing, he assumed she was keeping something from him. From the looks of things, it was something big. He glanced at her room's condition before sitting down, he saw that Tifa's bed sheets were rumpled and disheveled, indicative of bodily thrashing and shifting. She wasn't sleeping and her posture implied weariness, this must have been going on for a long while.

There was no tiptoeing around this, and unable to alter his painfully terse vocabulary, he decided take the easiest route and be blunt about it.

"Tifa, is there something wrong?"

"Wrong? Not at all, Cloud. Really, I'm fine." Tifa moves over to the foot of her bed in retreat. She refused to face him with evidence of sadness on her face. She didn't have the means to deal with this tonight. Should he see it, he would automatically assume it to be because of him. And she didn't need him feeling guilty.

With Cloud, guilt comes with stages. The first obviously being guilt itself, where he blames himself for another's burdens. Second is worry, where he contemplates leaving in hopes of remedying the situation. And third is departure, where he gives way to the voice that tells him to run and never look back, never weighing any alternatives.

"But, I'm sure that I heard you..." Cloud prefers to be blunt, but not that blunt. "Did something happen today?"

It was too late; Cloud had sensed that something was wrong and now he wouldn't rest until he learned the truth. She'd been tactless and disclosed her grief for him to practically gawk at. And now Tifa's own guilt was channeled into irritation with herself. And she unwittingly lets her frustration loose on someone else.

"...It's not your fault, Cloud." Tifa responds, keeping her eyes on the skin of his sinewy arms to avoid the eye contact that so easily broke her.

Not understanding, he tries to look at her despite her blatant refusal to lock eyes with him. "Not my fault?"

Tifa turns her head his way now, her profile was all he could see. "...Yes, Cloud. I know it's safe to assume that you thought that my…lack of sleep, had something to do with you. Am I right?" Tifa replies stiffly.

He was, for lack of better words, confused. Tifa's aura suddenly became terribly withdrawn. He wouldn't be as put off by this if he only knew why. He'd hardly said anything, of course it wasn't his fault she was still awake at this time of night. But why was she so distant suddenly? What had he done wrong?

"I wasn't, I mean..I didn't.." He stammers in his plaguing disorientation.

"Because a coin can't fall to the ground on the other side of the world without it being your fault, right?" Tifa remarks in a tone with an acidity that burned even her ears.

Cloud stares in silent disbelief, his silence feels so loud and lasts so long that he feels he must speak, even if he hadn't any clue of what words he could begin to say. So, he swallows thickly, unsure of how to handle a situation of such uncharacteristic coldness in Tifa.

"Tifa?" Her name was all he could mutter.

What was she doing? She didn't know what was making her speak to him the way she was. The lack of sleep was surely affecting her brain cells because this simply wasn't like her. She would sooner smash every child's favorite toy than even remotely hurt Cloud. Moments ago, she was almost surging with joy at the knowledge that Cloud had stayed the night, and now she was borderline lashing out at him.

She might as well just throw him out right now and save herself the time, because the sourness of her words and body language did enough on their own.

All she'd ever wanted was to talk to him, but right now what she wants more than anything is silence.

"Only you would guess that whenever something goes even a bit wrong that it's got something to do with you." Tifa paused to sniffle a little. "Not everything is about you, Cloud."

And with the ending of that sentence Tifa wants to slap herself, she was lying again. Everything, everything she did from the moment she wakes up in the morning to when she goes to bed is for Cloud, about Cloud. She can't even brush her teeth without him crossing her mind. So why was she acting this way towards him, when he meant everything and the world to her?

She knows Cloud. She knows what he can and can't handle. Cloud was a fragile soul, one does not speak to him the way she was. Yes, she knew speaking this way to Cloud, to anyone, was impetuous and coarse. But it was the fact that it was Cloud who she was attacking that had her wanting to pull her hair out in annoyance with herself. This was a dangerous line she was walking; Cloud was like an impressionable child when it to reprimands or scoldings. She just wanted to be quiet, to shut up, to sleep.

She knew she was hardly any better at getting her feelings across than he was, but this is no excuse for her rudeness. Looking at him now, she notices that he now slouches in a cowering hunch away from her, probably in some kind of defense.

He was trying to talk, he really was. But his tongue was so heavy with consternation and worry that he couldn't come up with anything to confute. She made it very hard to believe that she wasn't angry with him, what with the way she chides him like this.

Why? Why was she angry? And why make a point to make it obvious to him now?

If Cloud loathed anything more than a silver haired nightmare, it was when he was left in the dark. Not only was he in the dark, but Tifa was practically bashing him repeatedly on the head in this darkness, he couldn't defend himself. He hated not understanding the state of his surroundings, so if he was ever to defend himself, he'd have to learn to adapt.

Just as he opens his mouth to retaliate, he watches her crawl up to his side and he shuts his mouth.

In her earlier frustration, Tifa failed to stop herself from worsening things that were already broken. In what universe does berating Cloud Strife when all he's done is try to help you make things any better? No universe that she lived in, that's for sure.

But she'd done so anyway. Her exhaustion was truly affecting her common sense. She'd acted on exasperation, and not rationality. Her mouth became a window that vented her grief on the one person she had to be the most careful with. She felt like a big, mean dog who'd just bullied a helpless pup.

But humans can only hold their tongue and saturate in their woes for so long until they inevitably go off the deep end. Regardless of how hard one tries to deny oneself the luxury of complaint, regardless of how inopportune their settings are. Even the most dormant volcanoes can still erupt.

"I'm so sorry," Tifa slips her hand under his, rubbing his fingers and mindlessly smoothing her hand over his arm, disregarding the intimacy behind such a simple gesture. "I didn't mean for that to sound like it did, forgive me." She whispers.

"Tifa-" Cloud began but was stopped short.

"I'm just grumpy, because I can't sleep is all." Tifa looks at him woefully.

Cloud figures this is the most sensible justification, past experiences all back this explanation as well. The last time Tifa had spoken to him that way was when he'd contracted Geostigma and hid himself away at Aerith's church. But she'd been right to upbraid him back then, wasn't she?

Tifa watches as Cloud's fine features twist with confliction and dubiety, and she felt her stomach churn as her knowledge of Cloud's significative brooding faces kicked into full gear. He was beginning to pay heed to her previous, ill-founded words.

"No. No, don't you dare!" Tifa cups his face in her palms and forces his attention to herself. "I didn't know what I was talking about, Cloud!"

He was beginning to believe some of the absurdities of her fit and she was helpless to stop it. She could see it in his eyes and in the way he clenches his jaw.

Right now, Tifa decides it would have been better if he'd left.

She didn't want to spend time around him if this was what her company would bring him.

"I know I'm not the most," Cloud pauses and faces her, floundering for the word that adequately describes what he isn't, "..together person, but I-"

Tifa brings her finger to his lips, she understands that the best thing for him to do is talk, that speaking to her, to anyone, would be cathartic to an extent. But, however purging it would be for him to divulge every single thing he'd been bottling up for her to listen to, it would serve no purpose if she didn't say something too.

Cloud was an immovable part of her, and likewise, his doubts and troubles were something she chose to fight as well. But conversely, Tifa's own problems were just as real and just as tangible as his.

And in the same way, had just as much to do with him.

He needed to speak. She needed to speak. As for now, she would start.

"Cloud.. It's just.." Tifa sighs and reluctantly extends her hand to tilt his chin in her direction, finally looking into the eyes that haunted her dreams with the beauty of a better place, a place they'd left behind.

"I mean, how long has it been since you've spoken a sentence that doesn't create a wall between you and other people?"

For those few seconds they maintained eye contact, Tifa saw something flicker in his eyes. She had to break it, she could feel the memories resurfacing.

He has asked himself that question every time he felt like he'd just pushed someone away. If he didn't know how to answer that himself, how could he hope to answer her?

The only way he could answer cogently was through admitting that he simply didn't want anyone else feeling obligated to supervise him. He found that removing himself was the only reliable measure he could think of to secure their..nominal normality. He hated unintentionally bleeding out his friends' sympathy. He already felt as if Tifa were dedicating most of her time to watching over him.

So, he supposed he kept his distance to just save everyone the trouble. To spare them the hassle of dealing with the insignificance of his problems. He could handle them. But he finds that no matter what he does to isolate them from the dizzying adversities that invariably adhere to him, the people closest to him somehow manage to entangle themselves into his messes.

He just didn't want to watch anyone else fall, and be helpless to stop it

"I just don't want to let anyone down." Cloud says, looking at her again, his expression is penitent.

Tifa's heart fluttered, she had almost anticipated this response, but it reassured her to hear it. Her feelings mirrored his own, and because their feelings matched they could both solve the issues behind them with more ease.

In Tifa's case, it was she who didn't want to let him down. She knew Cloud wasn't hers to keep tabs on, but he was a person who lived with her. He was a constant figure in her life, her family.

She was in love with him.

This meant Tifa would do anything to ensure his safety and happiness, no matter what boundaries she had to bear in mind. She understood that Cloud was an apt, grown man but it hardly mattered to her. Every one needed help occasionally, even the mighty Cloud. Hell, especially Cloud.

She knew that by smothering him the way she was, she could also effectively push him away in the process and one day annoy him to his limit and send him off again. But if he were just willing to let her in, she wouldn't need to worry about pushing him away.

She wanted to make good on her promise. The promise she'd made to never let him try to take anything on alone, if it called for a helping hand.

"You don't have to feel that way, Cloud." Tifa realized she hadn't let go of his hand since she'd grabbed it, so she took the opportunity to squeeze it.

"And you know what else? You don't have to feel to feel like you're to blame for another's troubles." She says with the most affectionate smile she could muster.

Tifa watches as Cloud lowers his gaze upon recalling their earlier subject. She however, delighted in how she renewed the topic in a more temperate manner.

"...You still don't know, do you?" Tifa smiles warmly at him.

Cloud's face remains stagnant, a defining trait of his, "Know what?"

"Now hold on to something, alright." Tifa chuckles. "I know you think you've let others down before, but never, not once, have you ever failed us." She makes for his other hand and takes that one too.

"It's true. You've never bailed out on any of us. Not me, not Barret, not Vincent, not even Yuffie or Cid!" Tifa catches the small snicker he lets out and continues.

"...Much less Aerith and Zack."

Just then, Cloud's hands became so much heavier in hers. His expression becomes heavy as well.

"You've honored them, Cloud. You've lived up to the expectations they set for you. You did it when you avenged them. You're doing it right now as you sit next to me. But I know you..."

Cloud's face contorts with subtle but perceptible ache, as though someone had just hit him with a blunt weapon. When he begins to shift his sight downward she knows that the painful recollection of their demise has taken precedence over what she'd been saying thus far, substituting his focus on her.

"I know you still miss them." Tifa's eyes dart this way and that, and finally settle on Cloud's hands. His guiltless yet guilty hands. "I miss them too."

Tifa knows the tragedy of their deaths continue to bedevil him, but not as terribly as they did before. He would always miss them and carry their visage in his memory, no one could say different. But ever since she'd brought Cloud home from the church after the battle, he seemed so much...lighter. In every way. The way he looked at people, the way he moved, the way he talked, even the way he opened and closed doors, it all seemed more weightless. Less dragged. Like he'd truly been relieved of the dead weight on his back.

He reminded her of the boy who sat by her bed after her tumble. The boy who had taught her that what was gone was gone, but never truly missing.

It must have had something to do with her.

Aerith would always look after everyone. She had always kept everyone's welfare in high regard. She would always wear a smile and made sure everyone else did too. Tifa would always understand Cloud's pain for her loss, the whole world grew a bit darker with Aerith's passing. So, she felt it was her duty to provide enough light for everyone, just like Aerith did, and without complaint. It was difficult, but she persevered in spite of this difficulty, commending herself for her valiant efforts. She thought she was doing an okay job. She didn't understand why it took Aerith's intervention, from beyond her grave, to reassure Cloud of something so simple.

That he was doing fine.

That everyone was fine. Tifa had been trying to show him that for almost two years. Why couldn't she break through to him? She and Cloud had always acted as mutual protectors of each other. What did Aerith provide to him that she didn't, that she couldn't? What did Aerith have that Tifa didn't? Tifa wasn't nearly as pristine or perfect as Aerith was, but could she apologize for that? She tried to meet Aerith's level, she tried but couldn't.

Tifa was all that she could be, but that still wasn't enough for Cloud.

Tifa felt like all she had been doing lately is help Cloud. Helping Cloud determine the short cuts in his map when traveling on deliveries. Helping him judiciously decide on gifts for the kids, as he had yet to constitute a stable relationship with them. When he came home with gashes from a skirmish with monsters on the stronger side. Even handing him tools when he worked on Fenrir. If she could help with all that, why couldn't she help where it was important?

She was never enough to help Cloud in the bigger picture. She felt like she was just there for petty support, a crutch. Always just the good samaritan, the well-wisher, a faithful assistant.

She felt like one of his fans.

Why couldn't she help with what was of overriding importance regarding lesser things she did? Why couldn't she help him cope? She didn't want to ferment in a malcontent boil beside herself for that interminable stretch of time, but it's what had become of her when she constantly examined these unresolved queries.

She couldn't be of any use, but Aerith could, and she wasn't even alive to touch him or talk to him.

How she wanted to resent Aerith.

But she couldn't. Tifa owed everything to Aerith. Aerith was the one who brought Cloud back to her, one of the reasons he was still here. So, in a way, Aerith had saved her too. God knows that without Cloud, Tifa wouldn't know how to go on. And when Cloud had been subject to the then-ubiquitous and deadly infection, Tifa was certain her chances to reach him were hurt fatally. But Aerith cures Cloud of the Geostigma that would take him away from Tifa. And then gives him the will to return to her.

Without Aerith, Tifa wouldn't be intertwining her fingers with Cloud's right now. She subconsciously squeezed them tighter.

She thanks Aerith every day for giving her a second chance at reaching his heart.

"...But I remember them as a source of motivation. Their memory pushes me forward." Tifa steadies her heartbeat as Cloud squeezes her fingers and stares into her eyes.

"When I think of them, I feel...happiness. I don't feel sorrow." She drowns in the blue of his eyes, and she can't feel sorrow. It was unthinkable. That these eyes, that have seen so much horror, sent her to a place of such familiarity and peace.

"Because, I know that isn't what they want..for me.." She leans closer to him, "..For us."

Tifa was not slow when it came to reading Cloud's eyes. She'd studied this language for years. His steady countenance betrayed what he was really thinking.

"Especially not for you, Cloud."

Tifa releases one of his hands, she notices his sudden unease but continued to advance. She places her free hand on his solid chest, resting just above his warm, palpitating heart.

"They're right here, Cloud. They'll always be right here." She tries to channel their spirits, maybe they could help her, help him see.

Tifa tries to exercise caution with her next sentence. "That goes for me, too."

She braces herself as she divulges she'd been wanting to say for so long. "I know you feel like you're still lost and you don't know where to go," Tifa's vision falls on the hand that sat above the heart of the man she loved. "That's why I want you to look in here. Look into your heart and find..us."

Despite her lethargy, Tifa has never felt more awake. She had likely blurred the feeble lines of awareness between an etiolated reality and some ebullient fantasy. But she almost doesn't care if she's dreaming, for not even in her dreams has she ever gotten this close.

"Because that's what friends are there for, Cloud." With the hand Tifa used to hold his own, she placed it over her own heart. His eyes widen and his cheekbones go red but she tunes it out. Never in her life had Tifa felt as small as she did now, she was as vulnerable as a lone fish in the vast seas that were Cloud's eyes. In his eyes, Tifa can clearly see her reflection. It makes her wonder if she might occupy some place inside him, just like he did in her.

"And..when I search for my own light," Tifa let's a stubborn tear trail down her cheek. "I always find you."

And suddenly Tifa can breathe. Perhaps she could sleep now.

She'd manifested what she'd kept encapsulated for that long time. She may have been a bit obscure about it, but she'd gotten most of her feelings across. She had expressed her inner turmoil and resolved it in the same hour.

But she felt no less open and exposed. Probably even more so now than before, for Cloud's hand was still on her chest where she had idiotically placed it and where her hand still covered his. He could clearly feel her heart ramming against her rib cage. Not to mention the tear she was certain he'd seen. Tifa begins to feel uneasy all over again.

In his silence, Cloud comes to realize that he doesn't deserve the woman before him. Not as a companion, not as a roommate, and not even as an ally in battle.

She was truly too good a person to have to stress over someone of such negligible importance as him. He who regularly contributed his own share of issues to the family table every night for her and everyone else to strain over as well. When she, a soul so self-sacrificing and self-denying, consciously chose to worry over not just him, but just about everyone else around her on a daily agenda.

To be constantly inundated with doubts and questions was the way his past had practically conditioned him up until some months ago; brooding was not uncommon in his monotonous existence. It'd become so customary in his day to day endeavors that it hardly burdened him anymore. But despite this accepted routine, Tifa refused to let him suffer alone. Extending herself to the point of helping him in neglect of sleep. And he was the one who came to her room to comfort her. She thought so much and so often about him and he couldn't even do her the favor of trying to help himself.

He didn't even deserve to look at her.

But she was beautiful. Even when tired and sleepy, her beauty was still so gripping. It didn't matter that her hair was mussed and tousled, it was as lustrous as it begged to be touched. And her skin so fair and faultless, even as she tried to hide her face from him as she shed tears. She was as lovely on the outside as she was on the inside.

A month ago, Cloud would have walked out of her room the moment she'd begun crying, believing he was the source of her current grief.

But now he understands that by leaving, he'd be throwing aside everything Tifa had just said. He couldn't go, he was her light. She had become his. He needed to impart the same strength to her on a reciprocal level. Just like she chose to console him when he needed someone, he would do for her.

He felt her heart beat under his palm and he knows that his beat in synchrony with hers, as if linked together.

The deleterious chapter of his life was over; he'd grown out of it. He no longer had to walk amongst the darkness and think himself helpless, unwanted and expendable. He felled his enemies with the tenacity provided to him by his friends. He walked into the bar every morning to see the recognized faces of his family. He made sure they were safe and they made sure he was happy, even though they weren't quite aware of it. They had become his purpose.

He wasn't alone anymore.

And it was all thanks to her. Tifa had hauled him out of that ditch and back to earth where he belonged.

By her side.

So, he would stay with her until he returned the favor or until she got tired of him. Whichever comes first.

"Tifa," Cloud takes her chin, reminiscent of the way she did to him, "Don't cry." He says smiling.

"I'm sorry, Cloud. I don't want you to see me like this." Tifa says trying to pull away, the awkward position he held her face in made it difficult to wipe her tears away.

Cloud smears a falling tear off her cheek with the pad of his thumb.

"I've seen worse." He smirks mirthfully. "On myself, actually"

Tifa's eyes continued to water with fresh tears and she tried blinking them away in attempt to listen.

"I remember the sadness that brought me to tears just like yours." Cloud leans back against Tifa's headboard as he meant to relay what he'd learned and felt back then.

"I remember being convinced that I was of no use to you or anyone else. Having watched Zack and Aerith die..."

Tifa scoots to his side and settles there, not even touching him. Simply reminding him that she was still there should he need her encouragement.

"I remember running so far away that I'd run out of gas on occasion, until I finally decided on staying in a place where I originally thought I wouldn't be found."

"Hiding out in a hole that had already been dug out, a classic tactic." Tifa observed, nodding at him.

Tifa remembered how bright and immaculate the church had been. Overlooking the missing ceiling and the debris that walled the outside of it, the church was untarnished as it had been when it was intact. Perhaps it was Aerith's constant and vigilant presence that made all shadows withdraw from the church, making its aura so powerfully pure and welcoming. But however spotless and filth-resistant it was, a man in a less than immaculate condition was still permitted entry.

"In that church, I distanced myself more and more from the world," Cloud feels her breath on his shoulder and her eyes catch his own. "..And from you guys."

Outside, Cloud could hear the rainfall intensify with a resounding crackle of thunder. He registered the quick shift of weight on the bed, she'd jumped in shock to the loud bolt of lightning. Seeing Tifa jump like that reminded Cloud that she was alive, that she could move and that she could breath. It reminded him of what he'd risked when he'd repudiated his role as the planet's savior, or almost did.

But seeing Tifa sprawled about the patch of flowers after her battle with one of the remnants, motionless and silent. It made him cringe at ever entertaining the thought. She resembled her state after her fall from Mount Nibel. After Sephiroth had mercilessly intercepted her. Both memories of times he'd failed to save her.

And after scooping her up into his arms and hearing her speak, Cloud had come to realize that he could not live with himself knowing that Tifa would die by his carelessness. That someone else would be taken because he'd sat by and done nothing.

So, he took up his swords and with Tifa's smile and the galvanizing image of her bruised body in his mind, bolstering his resolve, he strikes back at the threat. And it was the power lent to him by Tifa and his friends that would eventually save their planet. Cloud's strength was enough to vanquish the enemy, but it was Tifa's strength that brought him back from the edge of the starless abyss. By rescuing him, Tifa had helped save the world.

"But you saved me, Tifa." Cloud says inching closer to her. "That church was getting darker by the second with me in it, but you were able pull me out of there and then out of the darkness in end."

He notices her eyes produce a new sheen of salty water and he doesn't know what to make of it so he continues. Persistently emphasizing the word 'you'.

"You didn't have the patience to sit by and wait me out, but you had the courage to grab me by the shoulders and wake me up."

Tifa giggles and looks down at her lap before returning her attention to him.

"And that's what saved me, Tifa." Cloud lifts his index finger and plants it on her forehead. "You."

No matter how hard Tifa clenches her fists, she finds she can't curb the rolling waves of vehement warmth colliding into her sore heart. She thought that Cloud sitting right in front of her would make her body less willing to openly display its wholehearted responses to him and his words. She should have anticipated that she would never be so lucky. Each fugitive second of their locked gaze pruning away her body's fixed efforts to spurn the flutters and quivers.

Cloud had just laid all her fears to rest.

How could she have been so thoughtless? She had been so bitterly vitriolic to the point of taking umbrage at his recovery. So bent out of shape about not being the pivotal role in the conduct of Cloud's recuperation, but constantly reminding herself of her immaturity and being grateful to the one she thought had saved him. All the internal contention between her lucid half and her emotive half had been for a problem she'd foolishly imagined. The fact that she had been for wrong for so long is what baffled her significantly more than all else.

All this time derogating her value to Cloud's improvement, demeaning her efforts had been a waste of not just hers, but everyone's time. She was responsible for some of the betterment to Cloud's psyche. When she'd concluded that someone else was the primary cause of the miracle of Cloud's return, she'd been pitifully mistaken. All those days.

All those nights.

Abasing herself and trivializing the support she tirelessly gathered every day for him. She should have known.

She could reach Cloud, just as much the rest of the people he cherished. Aerith had been but another benefactor to the complete repair of Cloud, just as Tifa. He was sitting there, with his finger on her forehead, smiling, by the united collaboration of his friends.

It had always been a combined effort. It turns out she had been just as blind as Cloud back then.

She could only sit there and let her feelings take over. She began tearing up and she allowed those tears to fall unrestrained. Tifa fought for her breath, her lungs begged for air as her shallow breaths failed to satisfy them. Something she dismissed entirely.

She didn't need air, not anymore. She could live on the exaltation that shook her quivering body. This happiness could supply her with its own oxygen and keep her heart beating forever. She was overflowing with a new kind of joy she'd never felt before.

Now, in these seconds that seemed to endure and drag out, Tifa's gratitude towards Aerith greatly increases. She couldn't name any reason why. Perhaps she felt her presence slip by and exit, perhaps it was the falling rain that reminded her of Aerith's healing showers. Yes, it's funny how it should incidentally rain when Tifa's heartache would be eased.

Tifa takes a moment to invoke upon Aerith's spirit, to thank her for helping her see.

Just as she helped Cloud see.

Tifa throws all caution out her window and onto the wet pavement. Locking her arms around him, Tifa exhales all her doubts and uncertainties out. She then inhales Cloud's enticing scent, burying her face in the crook of his neck. She'd expected that her sudden, intimate contact would throw him for a loop as his body had stiffened upon her embrace. So, she only hugged tighter around him. She probably got the neck of his shirt and his skin a bit wet with her tears. She thinks she should apologize but she fears that her glee has rendered her completely inarticulate.

As of this moment, Tifa is positive she will not see another night without sleep, everything had been restored to perfect order. Of course, nothing had ever been broken, just a bit bent. And when she feels Cloud's arms clutch her tighter to his body, she melts into him and bathes in the warmth that radiates from his body. She notices that she'd somehow maneuvered herself onto his lap and sat astride his strong hips, straddling him.

Climbing off him, Tifa smiles as she remembers that she let one person go uncelebrated in their conversation.

"Thank you, Cloud. Thank you for protecting us. And always thinking about us, even though you don't want to admit it." Tifa playfully mocks him, and he takes it well as he rolls his eyes good-naturedly.

"Thank you for coming back home. To all of us." Tifa says, her gratitude in the sentence completely genuine.

Cloud's response came as quickly as she finished.

"…You're my home."

His voice came rigid and true, his words as real as hers. Tifa's mind floods with memories and images good and bad. Her mother's death and her cold and colorless face. The rough stone that shattered her bones when she'd fallen off the mountain. Her father's vice-like grip around her trembling fingers as the life slowly seeped out of the wound inflicted on him by the cutting blade of Masamune. This evokes the agony of her own pain when she'd been cut down by the very sword. She then remembers the relief she felt when she'd been reunited with Cloud, how the sting of her open gash seemed to subside with every word they'd exchanged. The time she'd crossed the thresholds of Cloud's mind and deciphered the puzzle of Cloud's muddled subconscious, and how afterwards he'd been in such pain. She suddenly recalls how calm and tranquil the atmosphere had become when they were together under the High wind, amidst the final battle. The horror that took her when she saw the explosion engulf Cloud's body when he violently collided with the last two remnants. And the smiles they'd shared when Cloud awoke in the church.

She had elevated Cloud to the center of her world. There was not an emotion that she did not associate him with. He was her sorrow, her grief, and her exhaustion. He was her joy, her hope, and her happiness.

He was her reason. Her goal. She was essentially the moon that perpetually gravitated to him, her destined planet.

The storm outside grew blustery and tempestuous, sending ripples of trepidation throughout her bones. She became hyperaware of everything. The hairs on her neck standing on end. Goose bumps that began to prickle the skin on her arms. Gusts of wind shaking her window frame loudly. And the man sitting in front of her becoming confused with every passing second of silence. Every memory she'd just relived would goad her on to confess what she would right now. She felt the last residual strips of her shell fall loose. The words escaped from her lips just before the thunderclap.

"...I'm in love with you."

The lightning outside crackles, resembling the elemental maelstrom taking place within her body.

She watches him tense, he even backs away from her, but she does just that, watches. Because she knows she can't do anything, she had exposed herself and her feelings. She could only wait for him. It shouldn't be too difficult; she'd waited for him for years now. It had become something she did despite herself. So, she would await his rejection or his acknowledgement. Come what may, Tifa would not disaffirm her true feelings. He could do whatever he would with them, but she would not back down from them.

Tifa doesn't speak a word for a prolonged stretch of seconds, her eyes telling of her internal disquietude. She wanted a forthright response no matter how scathing it might be.

It had been a full minute before Cloud could feel the blood rush to his head. He could feel his heart fall into his stomach and his ears burned to a glowing red pigment. He found that breathing from his nose had become a hassle and he that couldn't feel his fingers. Every part of him told him what he'd just heard were incongruous misinterpretations of a weary brain in vital need of sleep, but he knew better. At least he thought as much.

Cloud's ears were never wrong, Tifa had meant every word that had indeed come out of her mouth. He heard them loud and somewhat clear.

But it wasn't possible. It couldn't be.

He had never encountered any kind of romance. Was there some unspoken societal demand that he make up his mind that very second or damn himself and never give an answer at all? How was he to know when he couldn't recall a time when anyone might have felt something more for him? So what could Tifa see? And how long had she felt this way?

He hated not understanding! Uncharted territories like these made Cloud stagger in his seat on her bed. He didn't know what steps to take. What was he supposed to do?

The thunder outside made it harder for him to think.

He should know the answer, it sat right in front of him, provoking him with its obscurity. But at the same time, it was so obvious, he knew that. But if he knew the answer why had he fallen into such a panic? It had to be something else because this was not something he should be intimidated by; it was the simply the unexplored meaning behind it all that set him off. Yes, that must have been it. Disbelief. He couldn't believe that Tifa Lockhart was in love with him. He couldn't possibly be someone she wanted to romantically invest in

She deserved someone who knew what he was doing, someone who wasn't always busy. Who could tend to her because he had the time. A man who would understand and appreciate her rather than be haplessly captivated by her. A man who wouldn't be preoccupied fawning over her to pay any real attention to her.

But could he say he didn't love her?

He could never begin to verbalize a lie of that size, to say that he didn't love Tifa. Her existence meant everything to him, he loved her with everything he possessed and commanded. It was his love for her that made him want something better for her. At least that was what he'd told himself.

Amid his thoughts, Cloud comes to meet a realization. By thinking this way, he undermines his efforts to better himself. Giving consideration to destructive thoughts like he had back then.

Old habits truly die hard.

He wouldn't remedy the situation at all by wishing her a better lover. He'd only mask it with a nice idea and a pretty image. By handing her off to someone else he'd only be deserting her. A postured life with another might be leagues better than a real life with him, but he'd be damned before he let someone else snatch her away from him.

Perhaps he was selfish that way, but if it was for her, he would be selfish enough for them both. He owed it to her and himself to be truthful.

He was very much in love with her.

He looked at her, as she sat amongst her thoughts. That was a dangerous place, he would know.

"Tifa.."

Upon hearing her name, she jumps and moves closer. "Yes?"

"I..don't deserve you. But I.." Cloud begins and means to keep going but she wishes to speak as well.

"What do you mean, Cloud? Weren't you listening to me before?" Tifa's face expressed all the emotions her voice did, but with more accuracy.

"I was, and-"

"But Cloud, you're doing it again. You're demeaning yourself. What makes you think you don't deserve me? I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you, Cloud. You've saved me time and again." She pauses for emphasis, as to let everything sink in, everything he should have known by now.

"You're still my hero, you'll always be."

Cloud fails to keep his composure well under control. She'd beaten him to his punch. And his heart proceeded to swell up inside his chest and one could tell by the look on his boyish face. He wastes no time wrapping his arms around her, partly in some vain attempt at removing his reddening face from her sight. His voice cracks shamefully when he speaks. "And you'll always be my light."

Cloud takes advantage of their position and whispers into her ear. "I love you too, Tifa."

Tifa's heart skips and begins to beat in her ears as lump forms in her throat. She slides her arms up to his chest and gently pushes him back to search his eyes for sincerity. She gazes at his smiling face that had gone red. He looks childishly bashful and sheepish. The tips of his ears were red too, she remembers how hot his left ear felt against her cheek. His lips were trembling but he smiled just the same and his enthralling, aquamarine eyes had grown glossy.

She can now see in his eyes, the boy she thought she'd never see again.

Tifa's arms wrapped around Cloud's back once again and as all thought left her body, she presses her lips against his.

A second passes, two...five seconds pass without movement or audible sound. It wasn't until another peal of thunder ripped through the sky that they would separate with a jolt. Cloud pulls away, eyes shut and mouth shaking.

"Tifa." Cloud's voice shakes and his breaths came ragged.

Tifa had never known the feeling of colliding lips with another person, and she couldn't ask for anyone else to share her first kiss with.

His lips were everything she sought and imagined.

Those brief seconds of Cloud's lips beneath hers were enough to compensate for the time she'd wasted on everything but relishing in the softness of his mouth. She pulls him in and kisses him again, seeking that same spike of warmth that sent her mind into a blank.

She couldn't contain herself any longer. She simply didn't want to wait anymore now that everything lay within arm's reach now. And despite knowing that she had the rest of tomorrow and the days after to indulge in the time she could spend with Cloud in her arms, she didn't want to let their felicitous surroundings of a large bed and a stormy night slip by. And despite knowing that she should take caution with someone as inexperienced and new to every kind of intimacy as Cloud, she couldn't see herself slowing down for long tonight. She would not waste this revelatory and precious moment; she would make something of this night.

She grows a bit bold and probes his lips with her tongue. She tries to soothe him by gently running her fingers into his hair, hoping to inspire some response from him. She figured that he had always been chary of acting on any desirous feelings he might have had, even now. She could read the signals his body language sent her and she still senses his reluctance.

She understood his hesitancy and she meant to attend to it. Her hands are purposeful as they glide over his broad back to ease him. She slows things down a few notches, bringing the fire they had kindled down to a simmer.

His lips eventually part for her as he groans into her mouth. She explores his mouth brazenly and eagerly, he tastes of distinct sweetness and she quickly addicts herself to it. He urges her on with his hands as they find their way up and into the darkness of her hair. He caresses her face with his thumbs and she feels her body sink deeper into the heat that began to rapidly swallow them.

Tifa takes her time. She lets her hands finally do what they'd been itching to do for as long as she could remember. They slide along every contour of his firm body in slow, deliberate motions, creating that delightful friction that electrified her senses. All she had ever wanted to do was to touch him, in any way, any contact would have satisfied her. For so long, all Tifa could remember was wondering about how he would feel like under her fingertips. Under her lips. And now she had Cloud in her room, on her bed, and his taste on her tongue. He was practically melting into her palms. She almost didn't want to believe it, to save herself the pain of waking up from another dream. But she refused to let her doubt spoil this moment, whether it be real or fake. All she could focus on was her steadily rising temperature and trying to pace her heartbeat. But through the fabric of his shirt, Tifa feels the heat of the skin she was beginning to crave.

Tired and bored of their kneeling position, Tifa topples them over and finds herself straddling Cloud again. Only this time, her intentions are clear and intended. He gasps and lands awkwardly, she can't help giggling at him and the subtle amusements he achieved even when he didn't try. But she suddenly feels cold without his skin. She quickly resumes, her mouth falling on his neck while she breathes in the distinctive scent she would come to associate him with from now on.

She tugs a fist of silken blond hair back, leaving his neck vulnerable. And like a predator responding to the invitation of a prey's exposed throat, she attacks. Unintentionally gnawing and biting at him in sheer, unmufflered passion, making Cloud yelp and cry out. So, to relieve him of the stinging of her enthusiastic love bites she licks and nibbles, eliciting full-mouthed, mellifluous groans of surrender and bliss.

Tifa has never been one disposed to any kind of unwarranted aggression, even in the heat of a close-quarter battle, she never descends to blind rage or force no matter what odds play in her favor or against it. But when the hem of Cloud's shirt hinders the path of her kisses, something within her pops like the crack of a whip and a mirthful blaze ignites within her, beckoning her to rid his body of that stupid, unwanted shirt in reckless abandon. And before she can apologize, she lurches the shirt up and over his head in a clumsy and hastened frenzy.

"Wow." Tifa is unable to stifle her indirect compliment.

She stops for a bit to appreciate how fortunate she was, how the deities must have smiled upon her at this moment. The first time she rids a man of his clothing, the first time she wishes or more so yearns to see a man completely bare, she is rewarded with someone of such majesty.

Tifa would know, she had plenty to compare to. She'd come across all manner of men, attractive and otherwise. Spending time as a town's guide meant she'd be introduced to men of every shape and size. And as a bar hostess, Tifa would become more thoroughly acquainted with the male anatomy. A night of heavy drinking made some men a bit more inclined to stripping out of their clothes without given any green light for their behavior. Exposure to all this made Tifa less prone to gasping every time a man decided to reveal himself to her, which happened more often than expected or wanted.

But Cloud, the first man she was to undress, truly didn't belong in this world. As it conventionally restricted a man to a certain degree of beauty. In truth, reality limited all humans to a standard that is less than that of perfection. Even the most physically beautiful people, they too fall into a category that is below "perfect". This is precisely why the universe clearly had to have made a mistake in the placement of Cloud strife. In this case, Tifa couldn't even suck in the air to gasp in the first place.

She should have known that his body was as glorious as all his nimble feats and skills promised. Brandishing a sword would grant any man a certain amount of brawn. But for Cloud to wield multiple swords of great girth and to be astonishingly graceful while doing so meant that he'd receive musculature befitting of a god. And without the excessive body mass that might intimidate women and men alike. Cloud's body was tight and lean, corded with extra muscle in all the right places. As expected from one who specializes in speed and technique instead of brute impulse.

His abs were deliciously sculpted to an otherwise, anatomically impossible state of magnificence and he was highlighted by the moonlight in their dark environment. His solid chest would rise and fall in rhythm with his heavy breathing, amplifying his allure immensely. But the chiseled V-line that disappeared under the rim of his pants that implied something of even greater splendor were in store for her is what had Tifa's mouth watering uncontrollably.

His arms had come up to shield his body, probably from the cold. That or he was shrinking away from her timidly. She removes them as they hindered her just as his shirt had.

"Trust me, Cloud," Tifa let her eyes soak up the tempting sight before her once again for good measure. "..You have nothing to be shy about."

"...Why do I feel like you're mocking me?" Cloud asks quietly.

She leans down to place a kiss on his peaked nipple while her cool fingers gently scraped along his sides, drawing out a moan he tried but failed to choke down. "Do you still feel like I'm mocking you?" She asks, her tone is markedly coy.

His response was a shudder and a flustered face.

Tifa hands slid across his torso roughly and unchastened. She didn't know if it was her hands or his skin that was searing but she didn't bother pondering over it much longer. All she knew was that he was unapologetically addictive and she was incorrigibly acquiescent to her body's demands in her current state of hopeless need.

Her lips descend on him again, now on the taut skin of his toned abdomen. But however stimulating her lips were on him, she finds that her tongue appreciated his flesh much better than her lips could. His ardent sighs and pleads of pleasure served to spur her on and on.

Holding him by the waist and letting her tongue slide over his extremely appetizing abs made a scalding heat build up in the pit of Tifa's stomach. It compelled her to take his lips again with an adrenalized fervor.

Her flourishing desire made her clothes feel terribly constricting so she peels off her night shirt, revealing her lithe and curvaceous body. A thin sheen of sweat decorated the moonlit surface of her skin, giving the impression that she glowed.

Cloud swallows thickly, his eyes widen and glue to her generously sized chest. She momentarily forgets that she was without a bra until the cold air chills her. She shivers but quickly thinks of a solution.

Coming down on him, she grabs his hand and puts it on her bare mound. He shuts his eyes and turns away. But that simple contact alone made her entire body stir with desire.

"Don't be scared, Cloud." Tifa murmurs into his ear.

She encourages his hand with her own, gently kneading the flesh. She cannot contain her vocal mewls of rapture as he soon learns to squeeze and caress in every way that excited her. The chilly air ceased to affect her body now, and her growing passion drove her need to feel more, touch more. She simply needed more. Her eyes caught the bulge that tented his pants, where her object of desire awaited her touch. Tifa's hands moved by their own accord to swiftly deprive Cloud of the obstructing pants that interfered with her enjoyment.

"Tifa?!" Cloud jumps, protesting. He only perceives his pants being yanked off.

"Oh god.." Tifa whispers as her lips part in awe.

Everything goes quiet as Tifa ogles Cloud's throbbing manhood. It springs up, startling her. And when his arousal is at last completely and totally exposed to her, Tifa finally becomes aware of the accumulating moisture between her thighs. It was almost uncomfortable, but not enough to derail her from her current focus.

"...Please." Cloud tried to hide himself under his hands, greatly put off by the staring. Tifa grins and shakes her head as she stops him, shoving his hands aside to examine a bit longer. She observes that he was thick and long, and the tip was already slick with precum. She almost doubted that it would fit. But the uncertainty and anticipation aroused her and she doesn't feel content with looking anymore. Instead she wants to feel the heat of his member beneath her hands and watch him squirm.

Tifa abruptly wraps her fingers around him and pumps mercilessly. She doesn't bother teasing him.

"Aaaaahhh!Guh!" Cloud's groans are untempered as he throws his head back and balls his fists tightly. She does not allow him any time to adjust to this new pace, her left hand soon joins the right. She bites down on her lip and cups his balls, she'd almost left them unattended. He growls emphatically at the soft touch. The interplay of gentle massaging and relentless stroking was driving him crazy, so much that his body goes numb under her assault.

Cloud's growing delight makes Tifa feel adventurous. Her tongue snakes out to flick over the tip of his aching length to test him and he hisses loudly through his teeth on contact. She would describe the taste as strong, pungent, and very pleasant. Almost sweet. She wanted more. His lips part as more throaty moans rip through him when she licks again.

She watches as he bites his lip in a fatuous attempt at holding back another loud grunt. So she picks up her slack and licks all along the hard shaft vigorously. And she can conclude that he likes this as he groans appreciatively. Once Tifa is certain that he is wet enough, she takes his hard length completely, savoring his taste and reveling in the warmth.

He goes completely still for some seconds before he succumbs to the strength of his pleasure, screaming and panting fervently as her tongue dances on the skin of his hard on.

She sucks harder when she hears him fight for air. She doesn't close her eyes, preferring to watch as he writhes when she pulls him out at intervals only to tease his head with the tip of her tongue. Occasionally stroking his balls with the lightest touch. When she feels him struggling against her, she holds him down with her arms around his thighs. There, she found sufficient leeway that afforded her a good squeeze on his wonderfully delectable, plump butt. An opportunity she did not waste.

How he'd attained a rear of such health and fullness, she'd never understand. She'd never seen him break a sweat doing squats or something of the like. Must have been but another gift bestowed to him, or more so her, by infallible good fortune.

Cloud can feel himself becoming hoarse from the loud vocal expressions, the alien sensations he felt were enough to drive him insane. He'd suffered through almost every kind of physical pain. One would think that might have prepared him for the onslaught of foreign tremors thrumming throughout his body, but he had never been more wrong.

He could hardly breathe but Tifa didn't bother letting up. Everything was moving too quickly for him, his heart beat, his breathing and his rapidly increasing pleasure. Everything moved too fast for even him to keep up. The euphoria was sweltering, asphyxiating, unbearable. It blinded him, incapacitated him. It crippled his sense of time and thought. So, enfeebled by rapture, he allows himself to ride out the benumbing tides of ecstasy, acknowledging the control it imposed on him. He was left to lie there, lie there and squirm as he caved into the bliss inflicted by Tifa's ministrations.

She knew his release was imminent, she could feel him nearing his limit. Aware that he was quickly approaching it, she picked up the pace. Sucking harder, stroking faster. She feels the pressure of his fingers on her scalp but she does not slow down.

"Tifa..Aaahhhhh! P-please! I, I'm…aaah!" Cloud's attempts to warn her are garbled amidst his howls of pleasure.

She needs no further cautioning. With renewed ambition, she forces her body to move with more avidity, to act with more energy and speed. She wanted to be able to tell herself that she was the first to have Cloud Strife beg. To bask in the title of the only person to have tasted Cloud's essence, to have brought about his climax.

He pushes against her head now. "Really!..Tifa, I think I'm..Aaaah!"

His cries fall on deaf ears as she remains unyielding to his pleads. Tifa's mouth works quicker, her hands move more roughly. She can hear it in his voice, that he was extremely close. And more than that she can tell, she was growing more and more impatient by the lingering seconds.

Cloud can feel something coiling within him, wrenching inside his gut. With every lick and touch he could feel it twisting tighter and tighter. It was searing, on the brink of combustion and he knew, knew that he was helpless to stop it, or even slow it down by some feeble amount. He could not subdue the power of this impending blow.

Tifa could feel something break in Cloud, snapping in two. Her eyes widen when his back arches and she feels the impact of the burst within her mouth. She can hear his shouts when he crosses that slim margin that separates the incipient precursors of pinnacle bliss and his current orgasmic pleasure. She was preoccupied with garfing down the last of his rich, smooth discharge.

She releases him and moves up to hover above him. He sucks greedy gulps of air as though he'd been strangled to the point of blacking out. She wants to feel sorry for him, but the overwhelming urge to giggle made arousing any sympathy quite difficult.

"…I'm sorry," He says, still struggling for the air he had deprived his lungs of, "I tried to tell you.."

Tifa only takes his lips again in a slow and sensual caress. Her lower half collides with his, and they both release a lustful moan. She can deduce that he is still decidedly hard, an outcome she half expected. His breathtaking stamina should have been enough to hint to her that this would happen. Knowing what he needed, what they both needed, she strips out of the last of her under garments.

She was not afraid, apprehensive, not even nervous. She was ready.

Cloud looks up and realizing her next aim, he tries to sit up, only to be shoved back down once she has made herself as naked as he was.

The rain continued to pound against the rooftop, and she felt almost in tune with it. Every crash of lightning struck with her heartbeat. She was sure the pounding in her ears would cease soon. Just as much as everything else. All the frustration toward herself and her cowardice and all her pent up longing for him would end. This was the final testament to this reality. Tifa was now certain she was not engrossed in another fantasy. The Cloud beneath her was as solid and corporeal as he was stoic. And her feelings for him were real and true. Just as his were.

There was no alarm or knock on her door to wake her. This was her chance to finally experience everything with Cloud. This was truly the only feat they had not shared in fulfilling together. They had done everything from running businesses together to saving the world together. They'd hidden their feelings together and revealed them together, all in the same embrace.

This was all that was left. This was the destiny she had yet to realize.

"Tifa, wait, are you.." Cloud says, bringing his hand to hers where she placed it on his hip.

"Yes. I am, Cloud," Tifa whispers to him, smiling against his ear, "I've always been ready."

She ends the sentence with a kiss and braces herself for the pain sure to come, she slides him into her. He screams upon entrance, but its not until she feels that he was embedded to the hilt that she allows herself to cry out. She seeks out his strength, fumbling for his hand so that she may borrow it. Screaming into his mouth, she does not notice him cup her cheek and deepen the kiss in hope of diminishing her pain by some amount. The warmth she found in his lips assuaged the pain immensely.

But truthfully, the pain wasn't any more devastating than any of the more agonizing pain she had undergone in her life. Hardly a comparison to the harrowing sting of the remnant's dual hound on her seared skin when she'd faced him in the church to find Cloud. Another example of the pain she would tolerate for him. It was simply the fact that she and Cloud were finally together. It didn't matter that most of AVALANCHE and even some her regulars had said they had seen it coming. And it didn't matter that she had always harbored a secret hope that perhaps they were right.

What mattered was that they were here, clinging to each other and clutching onto each other's hands. Moving against one another and moaning into each other's lips. She's thankful for the pouring rain outside. Marlene and Denzel would have heard them long before were it not for the muffling rain that dulled their noises.

She can feel the pain begin to submerge under the mounting bliss and the allaying pleasure he brought through his lips and his caresses. She was losing it. Losing awareness of the pain as it melted away with every grind. It began to blend with the pleasure. The ache quickly waning in discrepancy as it merged with the ecstasy until it became indiscernible. If this was the pleasure he felt before then she could definitely feel sorry now. It overtook her, blurred her vision. She could hardly make out the foggy figures before her.

All she could see was what could have been stars. Summoning memories of similar theme.

The night sky that blanketed their town as children, speckled white with a thousand stars. Cloud's choice of the water tower was too appropriate and convenient to not be calculated. The atmosphere was too fitting for a boy to tell a girl that he was about to go on a journey.

She tries to open her eyes as she grinds faster and harder. She makes use of her lips, leaving a trail of kisses on his neck, closing her eyes again.

And then she saw different stars, ones that didn't belong to the constellations of her hometown. The stars she'd seen from sitting beneath the wing of the high wind. These stars were entirely different, they were farther away, but somehow closer. Because it was these stars that she had been fighting for. It was these stars that she had entrusted with her every last wish.

It was under these stars where she had spent her last night with Cloud. The night she thought she would die the following morning.

Tifa opens her eyes and forces her vision clear. She looks at him, watches him pant and groan with every grind of her hips. She doesn't blink as her breath quickens when she moves faster and harder. Watching on as he throws his head back, his grip on her arms tightening. Her hand departs from his hip and moves to cup his neck, bringing his lips to hers for a chaste and cursory kiss, knowing they needed to breath. She gazes into the endless blue eyes she fell in love with once they open.

And she knows that he was the brightest star she had been fighting for back then.

She feels the beginnings of a tightening sensation around her abdomen. She almost collapses on top of him when she feels it constrict. She knows that if she was to relieve this tension, she would need to move faster. He begins to thrust upward in unison with her. This makes for new angle that had both their backs arching. The waves of delight were stronger than ever now. Tifa could feel her fingers go numb, but she held on to Cloud none the less.

It's coming. She knows. They both do. She cannot maintain her position above Cloud anymore, and finally collapses onto him. She continues to grind while burying her face in the crook of his neck. She does not care that the pounding in her ears had not stopped, she can still hear the groaning and panting that filled her room. In her gut, she feels the pressure begin to give out. Like a spring coming loose violently.

Tifa forces her head up and her eyes open to look at him. This moment she had to remember. His eyes open with hers as he advances on his limit a second time. He knows what she wants, he can see it in the depths of her eyes. So, he lifts his head to meet hers, and claims her lips in a last, burning kiss.

And Tifa erupts into a flurry of screams and moans. All she could see was white as she contracted around him and shook against him. All her that ears can register is a strident ring. She can feel it from the beds of her nails to the soles of her feet. She could feel her toes curling and her fingers tingling. It was a rare instance when Tifa felt she could not endure a certain situation, but this might have been one of them.

But it was amazing, frighteningly so. This was the power of their love.

She can hear him coming undone along with her. He clutches onto her as his body convulses in response to the blistering, vicious surges racking his entire frame. She closed her eyes as the pleasure consumed them. Her confines eroding away with every rolling wave. She searches for his strength again, clamping her hand around his.

And just when she begins to think it would last forever, her pulse begins to regulate. Her breath returns to her and she can unfurl her limbs. The strength in her arms is restored and she can push herself up. She tumbles over to his side and catches her breath. He does the same and she stares at how his chest rises and falls with every heavy breath.

"I love you." She repeats.

She could say it so freely now. Every day, if she had the mind to.

Cloud continues to adjust his breathing, but stops when he hears this. "I love you, too."

Tifa could almost die right about now. She had done everything thing now, crossed off every dream she that wished.

He was hers now. It was done.

And she was his. Everything had come full circle. She supposed they were..a couple now. Because he was in fact hers. Not to say she had any govern over him or his ways, but that she might be allowed a closer seat in her watch over him. He may not be fond of her unwinking supervision and may never grow accustomed to it. But she would always cast a vigilant eye on him, it's what she did with everyone she loved. Slipping them both under the covers to spare them the bite of cold, she drowns in the heat of his body and lets her eyes fall shut. His heart beats beneath her cheek and she smiles when she thinks of how many nights this heartbeat will lull her to sleep. She had fought tooth and nail for this heart for so long, but it had been hers all along. She had watched this heart break, crumble to pieces and come back together again. This heart had been beaten, manipulated and deceived, but it was still whole. And would remain as such, she would make certain of this.

His heart was hers to protect now.

And she knew he would always be there for her. That's how the stories go. The pretty princess and the handsome prince would join in arms to defend the universe and slay every villain, every dragon that obstructed the peace and harmony.

This may not be the plot's narration recited verbatim, but this was not the point anyhow. They had the gist of it down. It was up to them to write the rest. They were the ones to rule their fate. To record their own tale.

Because theirs was an altruistic love. Because their destinies lied within each other. Because Tifa Lockhart was a princess but was not the only one in distress. Because Cloud Strife was a prince but he wasn't always fearless. Because they were prince and princess but they didn't live in a castle and they most certainly didn't live in a perfect kingdom. Because theirs was not a fairy tale of storybook but one definitely worthy of chronicle.

* * *

**An: I hope I didn't make Tifa seem at all mean around the beginning, I just wanted to illustrate a scene like the one in the movie where Tifa kinda hammers some sense into Cloud's perfect little head after the turks bring them home, only here she's a bit more telling about her feelings.**

**Thank you SOOOOO much for reading! **

**Please, tell me what you thought! I welcome criticism as much as appraisal! Love all around!**


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